FBI-gate: The Outlines of the Story Are Coming into Focus

by Thomas Lifson · February 13, 2018
Thanks to the work of smart and hardworking (non-mainstream) journalists, we can peek just a bit over the horizon and see where the story of the weaponization of the FBI via a senior-level cabal is going from here. I use the word “story” deliberately, because that is the way public opinion forms itself on major political affairs. The progressives in the media and politics have long understood this. The cast of the story is now set, and some dramatic plot points have been identified. The ending hasn’t been written yet, of course, but the villains are identifying themselves or being exposed, and some of the heroes are emerging. We are on the cusp of a drama much bigger than Watergate breaking open, and its story elements are compelling.

In the calm before the storm breaks, the mainstream media and the Democrat attack squad from the House Intel committee are in the midst of utterly discrediting themselves. Once the story breaks into the open, indictments will be handed down, and the witnesses, hostile and cooperating, will be heard in hearings and in court. They have worked together to cover up and distract from the story, but the truth will out, and now it is becoming clear how that will happen.

The fake controversy over the ten-page Schiff memo is keeping the morale of the #resistance crowd up, but Schiff himself will go down in history as the guy who kicked sand in the eyes of the investigators. All that media effort in pushing the phony narrative of Russia collusion will make them into dupes and laughingstocks, once the solid evidence is brought to light that a conspiracy to push that phony narrative was run with key members of the Clinton machine working hand in glove with the cabal.

Sharyl Attkisson has done us a great favor in identifying the dramatis personae who formed the FBI “secret society” that protected Hillary and spied on Trump. She has organized a chart depicting the senior-level personnel changes at the Justice Department during the campaign, the Russia probe, and the Clinton email probe, highlighting in yellow the individuals James Comey appointed.

In the space of a year, as the presidential campaigns got rolling in the fall of 2015, James Comey moved his team into top positions in the intelligence and counterintelligence apparatus of the FBI. That’s where the surveillance capacity exists. Thanks to the efforts of Chairman Devin Nunes of the House Intel Committee and Senators Grassley and Graham, we have the basic story already outlined and have received the first installment of the plot: the issuance of the FISA warrants on the basis of a fiction pushed by the Clinton campaign.

Disclosure of some of the lovebird texts of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page already has provided plenty of drama – romance, secrets, hatred, and a break-up text calling off the affair – and there are more texts to come. Strzok’s firing from the Mueller special counsel’s team was the first manifestation of the cabal being busted, and last week’s flurry of senior-level FBI officials departing is another sign that insiders know that the jig is up.

Meanwhile, our own Clarice Feldman presents evidence that the guilty plea of General Michael Flynn, the pre-eminent scalp hanging from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s belt, may be thrown out of court when he appears for sentencing by Judge Emmet Sullivan, following the mysterious recusal of Judge Rudolph Contreras and the equally or even more mysterious request by Mueller to delay sentencing. Something’s up, and it is big.

The forthcoming Department of Justice inspector general’s report, believed to be slated for next month, is a wild card. With a staff of 250, I.G. Michael Horowitz should have uncovered much, and Horowitz has a sterling reputation. But then again, so did James Comey at one point. Lots of people putatively on our side have vouched for Horowitz, but we don’t know the scope of the report, nor do we know what evidence of corruption will be presented.

However, a game-changer is about to drop. Last Saturday, we got the first indirect, inferential evidence of a major revelation on its way: there is an informant from among the cast of characters Sharyl Attkisson highlighted in yellow, a canary singing to save himself.

This mystery figure is the man who, a number of observers noticed, has never been mentioned as the information has dripped out of the FBI. His name is Bill Priestap, and he was brought in by James Comey as assistant director of the FBI, Counterintelligence Division, in December 2015.

Preistap’s identity as the DOJ’s informant was inadvertently and indirectly confirmed Saturday night by Chris Stewart, a member of the Nunes committee, under informed and targeted questioning by Judge Jeanine Pirro, a former prosecutor and skilled courtroom interrogator.

Watch below as she blindsides Stewart with Priestap’s name, he deflects the question, and then she circles back in, softening him up by saying, “I don’t like that I haven’t heard of him.” Then she went in for the kill, laying out the way Comey “threw him under the bus” (more on that later from Sundance) and then says, “The fact that we haven’t heard from Priestap tells me that he’s cooperating with someone or…what?”

Poor Stewart, an honest man, then gives away the game by responding, “Well, look, I’m gonna be careful because I’m not sure what we can say on this, and believe me, I don’t want to be the headline when Chris Stewart reveals a bunch of sensitive or classified information[.]” Okay, he didn’t say, Yes, Priestap’s a cooperating witness, but it’s clear to me that such an inference is justified.

Sundance of Conservative Treehouse has a brilliant analysis that should be read in its entirety laying out why Priestap is the songbird.

His analysis of the moment Comey “threw him under the bus” is persuasive:

On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016.

FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.*

I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important detail. Again, notice how Comey doesn’t use Priestap’s actual name, but refers to his position and title. Again, watch [Prompted]

… At that moment, that very specific moment during that March 20th hearing, anyone who watches these hearings closely could see FBI Director James Comey was attempting to create his own exit from being ensnared in the consequences from the wiretapping and surveillance operation of candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and eventually President Donald Trump.

In essence, Bill Priestap was James Comey’s fall guy. We knew it at the time that Bill Priestap would likely see this the same way. The guy would have too much to lose by allowing James Comey to set him up.

Immediately there was motive for Bill Priestap to flip and become the primary source to reveal the hidden machinations. Why should he take the fall for the operation when there were multiple people around the upper-levels of leadership who carried out the operation[?]

Already, despite the mainstream media’s best effort, half of the public now believes that senior law enforcement officials broke the law to hinder the Trump presidency, according to Rasmussen. A grand narrative of breathtaking conspiracy and corruption awaits us as the biggest political scandal in American history unfolds. The story now has a face and a narrator named Priestap, even though his information can’t yet be revealed. All in good tine, but preferably before November.

Formally, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence or HPSCI.